It’s been two years since I last wrote here. I’m weary and tired. It’s been 3 years since I’ve been home to the United States. I haven’t been able to leave China. China’s borders are still shut. “Suck it up for country” and “stay quiet” have become the bottom lines for those who disagree with measures for “static control measures to limit the nonessential movement under closed loop community management to achieve dynamic zero,” also known as city-wide lockdowns.
People and pets were trapped inside their apartments in a 2-month lockdown in Shanghai, scarcity of food and water, people unable to receive the needed health care…. Expats left in droves and carloads, leaving pets, entire homes and histories behind, only able to get on planes to their home countries if they promised not to come back to China any time soon. Most didn’t, and haven’t, come back.
I’ve been locked down in my home 6 times now since my return to Shenzhen in the fall of 2020. Trauma, it compounds and reignites every time. How many more times will I bear witness to panic buying and empty supermarket shelves as rumors circulate on online platforms that Shenzhen is headed into another lockdown? Altogether terrifying, feeling the world close in on me, and yet still…
Like complacent cows, we test every day, all 13 million of us, scanning and registering individual "health codes" to go to work in mega offices, to dine in restaurants, for simple walks along the promenade, so that spread of COVID cases can be tracked. How long will it be to feel free again?
